


Idle Hands

by sistermercury



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nail Polish, please enjoy this nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 13:18:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13718526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistermercury/pseuds/sistermercury
Summary: A motel room, a blizzard, a new hobby.





	Idle Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Margo_Kim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Margo_Kim/gifts).



“What are you doing?”

Marcus’s shoulders twitch up for a moment and he curses softly and Tomas realizes he’s startled him.

A chemical scent hangs heavy in the air, creating a sort of aura around Marcus, who is bent over the small desk crammed into the corner of their room. Tomas almost wants to tells him that the smell woke him up, planting a tiny headache into the front of his brain, but he can’t even say if that’s entirely true. Seems his head always hurts these days. Headache and migraines aren’t the right words for this particular illness. Pills aren’t much, but Tomas takes them anyway.

Their room is dark and the curtains are drawn, and Tomas has no idea if it’s 8 pm or 2 am. They’re trapped in wet, midwestern winter, the kind Tomas always feared would last forever, the kind that sent his meager congregation dragging their booted feet into St. Anthony's, tracking in water and oil and dirt, and always wrapped the church in filthy snow banks that wouldn't melt til long after St. Patrick's Day. This kind of winter meant forever mopping away the shoe prints in the aisles, and wondering if he was going to get the flu as a hazard of serving communion.

That’s a past life, though. In Mexico, they had a neighbor who used to opine about her past lives, stories full of pain and romance, that always ended dramatically, a terrible accident or a tragic suicide. His abuelita used to reassure him that there was only one life to be lived- their life on earth, one of hardship and service, and then the eternal reward of Heaven. But Tomas understands better now. Maybe you didn’t have to die to have a past life. Sitting up, he winces and swallows hard, not entirely sure that he’s not about to void his breakfast in the next few minutes.

(Marcus found him in the rest stop parking lot, on his knees, hands splayed out in front of him, palms scraping against the jagged pavement. His chest heaved like he was drowning. He _was_ drowning. The visions have come every other day for a week.)

“Nothing...of...consequence.” Marcus replies, with that stilted, dragging tone that suggests he’s concentrating. From here, Tomas might guess he’s sketching, the way his wrists seem to move with repetitive motion, shoulders are tightly drawn up under the thin gray sweater. Tomas met him in that sweater.

It’s a dreadful garment, it hangs on Marcus’s thin frame the way dust and cobwebs hang in unattended windows, and gives him the uneven coloring of a slab of pink granite. It makes him look pale and inpermanent. But Tomas knows from experience that it’s so worn as to be soft as butter, and forever smells like clove cigarettes.

“How are you feeling?” Marcus asks softly. Tomas wonders if he’s tired of asking. He knows he’s tired of being asked, but he’ll never say it. Never, not with Marcus carting him across state line, a half-conscious liability, less an apprentice and more a ticking time bomb. He’s always kind enough to withhold his ‘I told you so’s’ until after Tomas is conscious, figuring that throwing up on the side of the highway is usually punishment enough. Maybe it all wouldn’t be so bad if these last round of visions were useful, but they’re more like bombs going off in his skull, brief flashes and words and images that might be memorable if he didn’t spend so much of the aftermath picking the shrapnel out of his brain.

“I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I asked. That’s about as helpful as saying yes or no.” He doesn’t snap, doesn’t sound angry. Tomas almost wishes he would, because if they’re biting each other, bickering like old women over a game of cards, that means that things are normal, that Marcus isn’t treating him like a sick cat that he’s dragging through it’s fifth fruitless round of dialysis. Tomas shakes his head, and lays back against the flat pillows, staring up at the vacant ceiling.

“Tired.” he sighs, and watches Marcus’s shoulders slump a bit. “I’m…” His mouth tastes like bile and his skin is tacky with dried sweat. “I’m so tired.” he says, almost to himself. (But always to Marcus, who will understand, who will help him.)

“You were out for awhile.” The smell still lingers in the air, sharp like paint thinner or cleaning fluid and he knows this room did not smell this way when they stumbled in. It had smelled like the aftermath of 20 years of chain-smoking buried under a few coats of paint and new linens. Some things are permanent. They “stain” as Marcus would say, and for a few moments, he feels as filthy as this room, and knows it might not matter how much sleep he gets, how much he prays. This room will always smell like smoke. His head may always be a door left open, inviting demons inside to create new layers of scar tissue.

( _Why would God do this to you_ , Marcus had once tried to argue, and Tomas reminded him to be smart. God did nastier things to better men than him. “Well,” Marcus replied, clenching his jaw for a moment. “If you’re looking for canonization, don’t start with me.”)

Marcus glances back over his shoulder. “You should try for more. I’m not going anywhere in this weather.” Tomas can hear the wind outside and the faint pattering of ice crystals against the window and he shivers beneath the thin blankets and the shiny, gaudy top comforter. He doesn’t even remember checking in, and he’s dressed in little but his jeans. Shoes, socks, belt and shirt all sit in a pile next to the nightstand. He sighs, and sits up fully.

“You didn’t have to do that.” he mumbles and when Marcus turns, Tomas cocks his head at the little heap of clothes. The color of Marcus’s complexion almost matches his sweater in this light, it’s the way he gets when he’s running on empty, like the blood slowly drains away from his face and neck. He rolls his eyes and turns back to his project, whatever that may be. “Had to peel the shirt off of you, you were sweating too bad.”

There’s more evidence of Marcus’s work on the bedside table. A half-empty bottle of aspirin, a damp washcloth, bloodied pieces of toilet paper that match a pain in his left hand- and he remembers a pair of tweezers, and Marcus’s gentle, dexterous fingers pulling a piece of glass from his palm.

“Oh.” is all he can say.

Tomas stands with well-earned caution, swaying like a newborn fawn for a moment as the blood rushes to his head, and in an unearned moment of pure drama, he figures if he falls in this motel room, better to hit his head and die instantly than make Marcus have to get up and help him and wonder endlessly when he traded being Rome’s most feared exorcist for someone’s nursemaid. But he doesn’t, he rights himself, and slides on a clean shirt before he crosses the room, plopping down gracelessly into the loveseat nearest Marcus. The arms are scarred with cigarette burns, but it’s overstuffed enough to support his weak, boneless posture.

“You didn’t answer _my_ question-” he starts, buttoning the flannel before he actually looks up to the desk, expecting to see scattered pencils, to see Marcus’s hands smudged up to the wrist with charcoal. Instead, there’s a small bag, glittery cobalt blue vinyl with a zipper at the top, which is open, spilling out it’s contents onto the desk; liquid eyeliner, a small pot of iridescent eyeshadow, hand-rolled cigarettes (possibly joints, Tomas thinks, from the almost-translucent rolling paper), and a mercifully unwrapped condom. Marcus leans under the desk lamp, brow furrowed in concentration, as he carefully handles a nail polish brush, painting a layer of black varnish over his thumbnail.

He’s clearly been at this for awhile, and Tomas realizes the smell is coming from an open bottle of rubbing alcohol, which sits next to a pile of used Q-tips, most of them coated black at the head.

“Where did you-” Tomas starts, brow furrowing in tired confusion. Marcus nods towards the bathroom.

“Someone left it under the sink.” he says and Tomas nods, mutely. “Along with $50 and a dimebag of cocaine.” Marcus turns, and Tomas isn’t entirely sure what his expression is doing but it makes Marcus grin like a smug stray cat who’s just laid claws in a mouse.

“Put your pearls down, love, you’re choking yourself.” he says, lifting his hand to blow on the painted thumbnail. “I flushed it. Figured you’re too pretty for prison.” He can feel his cheeks burn at the backhanded compliment and tries to ignore Marcus’s lips as they purse into a soft kiss. Tomas can see he’s already done his entire left hand, and truthfully, he’s done a fine job, hardly any smudges on the sides.

Marcus leans back in and starts on his right hand, and Tomas can already sense his lack of confidence, not using his dominant hand, the way he tries to delicately swipe the brush near the cuticles and swearing under his breath when the paint goes beyond the nail and coats the sides of his fingers. He takes a side-eyed glance at Tomas and audibly exhales.

“Go on.”

“What?” Tomas says, as innocently as he can manage. He curls up into the oversized chair, leaning his arm against the desk so he can perch his chin up and watch him.

Marcus picks up a Q-tip and soaks it in the rubbing alcohol, swiping away his mistakes with precision. He really is a wonderful artist, Tomas thinks, having watched him sketch enough faces and buildings and birds from sheer memory, and wants to ask where he learned such a thing, such a mastery of form. Like his eternal backlog of psalms and prayers, like his ease with foreign languages, just another mystery for Tomas to roll around in his head as he watched Marcus drive, grinning from ear to ear as he sang tunelessly to Otis Redding.

“Whatever you’re going to say, just say it.” Marcus says with a defensive shrug, impatiently waiting for Tomas to judge him or scold him. Fine, he thinks. Sure. He doesn’t know many men who paint their nails. (Let alone older men, let alone excommunicated priests, let alone exorcists, etc.) So he just shrugs and yawns.

“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” he mumbles, looking at his own left hand, which has been bandaged with care and precision, the skin irritated and torn were Tomas had relentless scraped it against the rough pavement. Marcus makes an affirmative noise and glances over at him, and for the first time in hours, they’re forced to really look at each other. They’re about as wrung out as old dish towels.

“Y'know they slipped that in sometime in the 70s.” Marcus answers back. "Actual proverb is: An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire. No, that..." Marcus thinks, and shrugs. "That one probably comes from St. Jerome. _Fac et aliquid operis, ut semper te diabolus inveniat occupatum._ Just a bastardization, like "wickedness loves company."" Tomas feels his stomach turn and he looks away for a moment. He can’t believe Marcus thinks that Tomas should be the one casting judgement. He closes his eyes, and buries his head in his folded arms.

“Do you find me wicked, Marcus?” he says, quietly, as if he’s afraid to be heard and he feels Marcus’s hand slide into his hair, stroking it back, untangling sweat-matted curls.

“No. Do you?”

Tomas lifts his head, smiling as he feels Marcus’s cool hand stroke down his neck. “No.” he says, returning to watch him. Marcus sighs and finishes the last two nails. It’s a messier job than his left hand, which had come out so cleanly and Tomas grins as he compares both sets of nails, frowning with the outcome.

“The other one never comes out as good.” Tomas reassures him and Marcus glances over, seemingly bemused. Tomas takes the small black bottle from the desk, looking it over, reading the little sticker on the bottom. _Vampsterdam._ Of course Marcus would choose black, and Tomas wonders for a moment if he actually intends to leave it on.

( _He will, for three days, before it succumbs, like all plastic pens and pencils that end up in Marcus’s grip, to his oral fixation._ )

“Olivia went through a nail technician phase.” he explains. “She liked to _practice_ . No one was safe.” It had, however, bred into Tomas a general preference for keeping his hands in good condition, a tendency that had been, in short, _destroyed_ by his “career change.” Now his hands were accumulating cuts and scars faster than he could keep track of, nails always torn up and dirty.

“Oh so you won’t mind if I do yours, then.” Marcus says, digging through the bag and producing some other colors, a coral pink, a sea green, an ultra-violet. He grabs that last one, looking at it for a moment before pressing it against Tomas’ temple with a grin. “Goes with your eyes.”

Tomas laughs, and it’s a feeling so foreign it almost shocks him. There hasn’t been much laughter in the last few days. He sits up, turning his chair towards Marcus. When he holds out his hands, they tremble despite his efforts to make them stop and his smile turns into a tight grimace.

“Probably not worth the effort.” he says, and watches Marcus’s face fall for a moment, before he shakes his head. Marcus sighs and reaches out a hand to stroke Tomas’ cheek, before shaking the purple bottle like a can of spray paint, and gently pressing Tomas’ palm into the desk, holding it there, his long, pale fingers, covering the scraped knuckles and bandages .

“Says you.” Marcus mumbles, before opening the bottle, and starting in on Tomas’ index finger.

**Author's Note:**

> this is easily the dumbest thing i've ever written and i hope you enjoyed it. 
> 
> i would like to thank @Margo_Kim yet again for indulging my nonsense and Travis McElroy for giving me firm conviction that more men should paint their nails.


End file.
